Football: Winthrop/Monmouth triumphs over Poland

POLAND — A persistent running game and key plays on special teams and defense pushed Winthrop/Monmouth/Hall-Dale/Kents Hill to a 28-8 win over Poland in Class D South football action Friday night.

The Ramblers (3-3) scored all three of their offensive touchdowns on the ground, including two in the second half, and completed only one pass in the game. The Knights’ (4-2) score was through the air, but came after an injury to starting quarterback Dylan Cook and Poland was forced to go to the passing game more while down late in the contest.

“(Ramblers coach Dave St. Hilaire has) got a good club,” Poland coach Gus LeBlanc said. “They’ve improved a lot since the beginning of the season. And they’re very physical, and we’re always undersized. We don’t have many big kids. So that’s always a struggle for us, and tonight it was a struggle that we couldn’t win.”

The Ramblers outgained the Knights 306 yards to 178, including 291-104 on the ground.

St. Hilaire said that the Ramblers thought they could simply out-physical teams earlier in the season, but after losing three of their first four games forced them to learn about following assignments and playing smart.

The Ramblers and Knights flexed their defensive muscles in the first half. Poland stopped a promising opening drive for Winthrop, which went nine plays and 53 yards, by forcing and recovering a fumble. The Knights’ first drive ended in a punt.

“It was tough,” LeBlanc said of not scoring on the fumble recovery or the ensuing drive, “because typically that’s what we’ve done over the season. We’ve picked up fumbles, we’ve converted them into defensive points. We’ve intercepted the ball. I thought (the player who recovered the fumble) was going to run that one back, but there was one guy that got him. So, yeah, I mean, I think that was tough for us.”

The Knights got the ball back for their second possession late in the first quarter.

They all but ditched the pass on the 15-play drive, calling 12 straight direct-snaps to running backs Isaac Ramsdell and Regan Cohen before the Ramblers defense stopped a run for negative yardage and forced Poland to pass. The drive ended with three straight drop-backs, which resulted in an incomplete pass, a 5-yard completion by Cook to Cohen on third down, and then a drive-ending sack of Cook by Avry Jones.

“It was frustrating to watch, because they were just picking up first downs, picking up first downs, and we’d make a couple plays, but we never really got to do what we wanted to do to kind of shut that down,” St. Hilaire said. “But we also knew that, for them to go 80 yards and try to do it in 15 plays, you got to be a patient offense. And we knew if we could make a couple plays and kind of get them out of that, that it was going to be a different thing.”

LeBlanc admitted that the strategy wasn’t a long-term one.

“Well, you know, that’s designed for short-yardage and that type of stuff. And typically you can’t run that over and over and over and over. It just becomes a war of wills,” he said. “So we weren’t surprised that we couldn’t run it forever, but we tried to milk it as long as we could.”

Carter Rivers was stopped for no gain on Winthrop’s first play of the next drive, but Cody Cobb ran for 36 yards and Rivers ran in a touchdown from 19 yards out to get the Ramblers on the scoreboard. Gabe Robinson’s extra point made it 7-0 with five minutes left in the first half.

“Tackling was not good. And we let them move us up front some, and that didn’t help,” LeBlanc said. “You know, their running game was pretty potent, and we struggled with that. If we could have controlled their running game, I think it would have been a much closer game.”

The Knights’ next drive didn’t go far, and a punt and return put the Ramblers near midfield with under two minutes left. A last-second deep pass was intercepted by Poland’s Damon Martin, who returned the ball 32 yards before Braden Branagan made a potential touchdown-saving tackle in Ramblers territory to end the half. Martin has returned a few interceptions for scores this season.

The Knights got the ball to start the second half and drove into Ramblers territory before punting. Winthrop’s ensuing drive initially didn’t go far. The Ramblers were forced to punt, but a muffed return of a bouncing ball eventually put the ball back into their hands.

That turned an eight-play drive into a 14-play drive, capped by Cobb’s 8-yard touchdown run and Robinson’s extra point.

The Knights answered with a scoring drive of their own. Martin, the backup quarterback, lofted a 27-yard touchdown pass to Nick Aube over two defenders in the end zone on the first play of the fourth quarter. Cohen ran in the two-point conversion, cutting the deficit to 14-8.

The teams traded three punts, then the Ramblers defense made a big play on a late Poland drive. After Cole Bard’s punt was downed at the 1-yard line, Ben Porter intercepted a pass and returned it 11 yards for a touchdown. Robinson’s kick made it 21-8 with 4:11 left.

“I mean, they’re down six (after) they hit the two-point conversion, and it’s like, ‘Oh, boy …’ And then they stop us. But it’s make a couple plays and then it’s like, ‘OK guys, we need a play here. We need a play here to kind of loosen this thing up,'” St. Hilaire said. “And Ben had a great one for his first of two picks today, and, yeah, that was outstanding.

“It’s just everybody kind of pitching in, and that’s how you win games … you do it as a team. And I’m really proud of these guys, of how they did it tonight, and last week.”

The Ramblers ended a two-game losing streak with a 7-6 win over John Bapst last Saturday.

LeBlanc said he takes the blame for the Knights’ loss.

“I told the kids when I talked to them (after the game), I was just really disappointed that I wasn’t able to better prepare them for this game. I feel like that’s my job. And I think this is a game we could have won. We made some mistakes, though,” LeBlanc said.

The Knights went three-and-out after Porter’s pick-6, then Rivers took the Ramblers’ second play 76 yards up the right sideline for a touchdown. The kick made it 28-8 with 1:38 left.

“Well Carter was out for one game, and he was injured for two other games. So over a three-game stretch, he had six carries,” St. Hilaire said. “So we were kind of one-dimensional with our running game at that point, but him running outside, Cody running inside, it’s great to see.

“And we’re getting the blocks on the outside, where we struggled early in the season. So everything’s coming together right now for us.”

Rivers finished with 193 yards on 23 carries, and Cobb added 100 yards on 12 carries.

For the Knights, Cohen was the top runner, with 18 carries for 84 yards. Cook and Martin each completed three passes, with Cook accumulating 42 yards and Martin adding 32.